Editing Noble savage (section)

===Kingdom of France===
In the intellectual debates of the late 16th and 17th centuries, philosophers used the racist stereotypes of the ''savage'' and the ''good savage'' as moral reproaches of the European monarchies fighting the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–1648) and the [[French Wars of Religion]] (1562–1598). In the essay "[[Of Cannibals]]" (1580), Michel de Montaigne reported that the [[Tupinambá people]] of Brazil ceremoniously eat the bodies of their dead enemies, as a matter of honour, whilst reminding the European reader that such ''wild man'' behavior was analogous to the religious barbarism of [[Death by burning|burning at the stake]]: "One calls ‘barbarism’ whatever he is not accustomed to."<ref>[http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/montaigne.html Essay "Of Cannibals"]</ref> The academic [[Terence Cave]] further explains Montaigne's point of [[moral philosophy]]:

{{blockquote|text=The cannibal practices are admitted [by Montaigne] but presented as part of a complex and balanced set of customs and beliefs which "make sense" in their own right. They are attached to a powerfully positive morality of valor and pride, one that would have been likely to appeal to early modern codes of honor, and they are contrasted with modes of behavior in the France of the wars of religion, which appear as distinctly less attractive, such as [[torture]] and barbarous methods of execution.<ref>Cave, Terence. ''How to Read Montaigne'' (London: Granta Books, 2007), pp. 81–82.</ref>}}

As philosophic reportage, "Of Cannibals" applies [[cultural relativism]] to compare the civilized European to the uncivilized noble savage. Montaigne's anthropological report about [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] in Brazil indicated that the Tupinambá people were neither a noble nor an exceptionally good [[People|folk]], yet neither were the Tupinambá culturally or morally inferior to his contemporary, 16th-century European civilization. From the perspective of [[Classical liberalism]] of Montaigne's humanist portrayal of the [[Convention (norm)|customs]] of honor of the Tupinambá people indicates [[Western philosophy|Western philosophic]] recognition that people are people, despite their different customs, traditions, and codes of honor. The academic David El Kenz explicates Montaigne's background concerning the violence of customary morality:

{{blockquote|In his ''Essais'' {{omission}} Montaigne discussed the first three wars of religion (1562–63; 1567–68; 1568–70) quite specifically; he had personally participated in [the wars], on the side of the [French] royal army, in southwestern France. The [anti-Protestant] [[St. Bartholomew's Day massacre]] [1572] led him to retire to his lands in the Périgord region, and remain silent on all public affairs until the 1580s. Thus, it seems that he was traumatized by the massacre. To him, cruelty was a criterion that differentiated the Wars of Religion [1562–1598] from previous conflicts, which he idealized. Montaigne considered that three factors accounted for the shift from regular war to the carnage of civil war: popular intervention, religious demagogy, and the never-ending aspect of the conflict. {{omission}}

He chose to depict cruelty through the image of hunting, which fitted with the tradition of condemning hunting for its association with blood and death, but it was still quite surprising, to the extent that this practice was part of the [[Aristocracy|aristocratic]] way of life. Montaigne reviled hunting by describing it as an urban massacre scene. In addition, the man–animal relationship allowed him to define [[virtue]], which he presented as the opposite of cruelty. {{omission}} [As] a sort of natural benevolence based on {{omission}} personal feelings.

Montaigne associated the [human] propensity to cruelty toward animals, with that exercised toward men. After all, following the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the invented image of Charles IX shooting Huguenots from the [[Louvre Palace]] window did combine the established reputation of the King as a hunter, with a stigmatization of hunting, a cruel and perverted custom, did it not?<ref>El Kenz, David. ''Massacres During the Wars of Religion'' (2007)[https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/massacres-during-wars-religion?cs=print David El Kenz,"Massacres During the Wars of Religion", 2007]</ref>}}